Land Acknowledgement
I am grateful and honoured to be guest on the unceded ancestral territory of the Lheidli T’enneh where I am humbled to live, learn, and teach on this beautiful land as a guest and settler as a second-generation Chinese-Canadian woman.
Welcome to my e-Portfolio
Learning by doing. Welcome to my e-portfolio. I am an experiential learner, action researcher, and teacher practitioner. My name is Dr. Christine Ho Younghusband.
I am an Assistant Professor in the School of Education at the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) and sessional instructor at St. Mark’s College at the University of British Columbia (UBC). I have a B.Sc. majoring in Chemistry with concentration in Mathematics from UBC, a B.Ed. in Secondary Education specializing in mathematics, science, and chemistry from UBC, an M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction from Simon Fraser University (SFU), and Ed.D. in Educational Leadership from SFU. My career in BC Education started with teaching secondary mathematics and science in BC public schools, then school trusteeship, sessional instruction at SFU, and Teacher Education at UNBC.
Why this portfolio? I have a passion for teaching, learning, and leadership and the underpinning of my work in BC Education is maintaining a reflective practice. After I left public education in 2010, I was able to maintain a WordPress site as a two-term school trustee, independent educational consultant, and doctoral student to “reflect in” and “reflect on” teaching, learning, and leading. E-Portfolios is one way to articulate one’s learning as they are doing, but also a way to document one’s achievements over time. I’ve had the great fortune to transfer some of my professional learning with e-Portfolios in the following courses:
- EDUC 431 (Education Technology) in 2019
- EDUC 490 (Formative Practicum) in 2019, 2020
- EDUC 491 (Summative Practicum) in 2019, 2020, 2021
- EDUC 405 (Reflective Practice Through Inquiry & Portfolio)
in 2020/21, 2022/23, 2023/24 - EDUC 796 (Portfolio) in in the M.Ed. Program in 2021, 2022, 2023
- EDUC 394 (Curriculum, Teaching & Pedagogy: Theory in Context) in 2024
About this portfolio. This e-Portfolio started in 2019 when I first taught EDUC 431 in 2019, where I had designed the course for Teacher Candidates to meet virtually EdTech BC Educators, write blog entries of what was learned, and create an e-Portfolio that included the Professional Standards for BC Educators and personal exemplars. You will see blog posts from 2019, but you will also see posts and pages that captures my professional career in BC Education. Teacher Candidates will attempt to capture their learning journey in the UNBC TEP and graduate students from the Special Education Program reflects on their learning throughout the M.Ed. Program and present their portfolio to committee as part of their capstone. Both B.Ed. and M.Ed. students under my supervision will use an open sourced version of WordPress via opened.ca, which is FIPPA compliant and FREE!!!
I feel grateful to learn more about e-portfolios in teacher education in EDUC 431 as part of the previous 2-year B.Ed. Program and continued the work into the redesigned B.Ed. program implemented in 2020. EDUC 405 replaced EDUC 431 in the new 16-month B.Ed. Program and weaves throughout the program. The original intention of this OpenETC WordPress site was to serve as an exemplar and model what is expected for the B.Ed. portfolio. However, the portfolio component has been removed from EDUC 405 in September 2024.
Although I had attempted to continue the work of e-portfolios in other courses, the learning intentions would no longer be focus on digital literacy (how to use the platform), digital footprint (writing their digital narrative in teacher education), and digital citizenship (incorporating the professional standards), I have decided to continue with this platform as “my portfolio” to explore my pedagogical journey as a faculty member, researcher, and learner. I enjoy reflective practice via portfolio and appreciate the formative and summative nature of the platform to document, celebrate, and make sense of my thoughts and the practice.
